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RoChannels
The roChannels were a proposed set of nine Robloxian television channels featuring IRL content that would have been exclusive to the roTV premium television service. The channels had been reserved channel numbers 111-119 and channel 124 (a large portion of the roTV listings at the time). The roChannels were first proposed on November 28, 2012. On December 3, 2013, in an "Update" Roblox forum post by his company rTV Networks, BenzBot had announced that the roChannels had been shelved indefinitely. Since the shelving of the roChannels, little has occurred concerning their services. The roChannels' stream feeds remain owned by BenzBot for potential use by future roTV services, and most of them have now been reused -- ro1's stream now belongs to RTN1, for example. The roPlay Channel launched on channel 110 as a holder channel for the roPlay service on the website, and there have been failed attempts to launch a roMovies service. The roChannels were innovative and ahead of their time, for premium television channels; predating the explosion of what are now called "IRL-content" channels by four years. They were also set to be the proving grounds for the "24-hour format" now used by several channels (such as, in the IRL-content format, Cartoon Everything and rTV3). The idea of the roChannels caught the attention of TheCanadianAskew43, who, in 2017, started a similar concept, dubbed the Player Channels, based on the roChannels, for TCA Player, his upcoming premium television service. Operation According to original documentation concerning the roChannels, most of them will have worked by pre-scheduling the appropriate content (programming, advertising, continuity, and so on) in advance, effectively automating the channel's playout. The exceptions to these were ro24 and roSports; ro24 would have more frequent interactions concerning its automated service, and roSports would feature Robloxian sporting events, of which an infrastructure would have to have been developed (that issue now lays with what could be deemed its spiritual successor, the rTV Networks-owned Blox Sports). According to early mockups for the roTV service, the roChannels would've had websites in a dedicated section of the roTV website (listed as "rotv.tk/ro/"). Channels ro1 Proposed channel number: 111 ro1 was the planned general entertainment outlet of the roChannels, akin to a channel such as Sky1. It would have featured a variety of IRL series of various genres. ro2 Proposed channel number: 112 ro2 was positioned as a children's channel, airing various IRL programs from major children's channels. The channel would have, theoretically, competed with rTV3 or, more recently, channels like Cartoon Everything or any number of bygone kids' offerings from various companies. ro3 Proposed channel number: 113 ro3 was positioned as an "off-kilter" channel; airing series deemed "alternative" or that skewed away from ro1's generalist lean; among the genres proposed were cult favorites and satirical series. roMovies Proposed channel number: 114 (initial), 117 (relaunch) Initial format roMovies was, initially, self-explanatory, given the format of the rest of the services -- it would have been a movie channel, showing mainly American movies from all genres. Genre-based movie identifiers were built for roMovies in initial mock designs of the roTV website (similar to the thematic movie channels available in most movie packages on IRL pay-TV systems). Potential relaunch project On December 19, 2013, just days after the rest of the channels had been shelved, the idea of the channel regained traction; however, instead of airing IRL films, it would have aired films from the vast Robloxian film industry, with the film library of the company The Mafia Films being the first to sign up. There may have also been a change in the ownership of the channel, as rTV Networks was looking to either outright buy or co-own the channel with the rest of the RTNG. rTVN owner and RTNG founding member and co-owner BenzBot said at the time that the launch of the channel in its then-current state, regardless of ownership or naming, was "a step forward in the collaboration efforts of the talented Robloxiwood film industry, and the still-emerging Robloxian television field". The project closed in early 2014 due to a lack of content from the Robloxian film companies being made available to the channel. Despite this, the idea of a Robloxian movie channel has led to the later creation of a few channels following the format, such as RMC and Flickz (now Blox Flickz). roU Proposed channel number: 115 roU would have been possbly the only roChannel to consistently feature original content, due to its positioning as a user-driven channel; it was made to feature videos done by Roblox users (mainly from YouTube, initial documentation noted). Functionality was planned where users could have submitted content directly to a roU website. roSports Proposed channel number: 116 roSports would have featured a variety of Robloxian and IRL sports, as well as sports review programs. Originally, in initial mocks and designs, roSports' channel color was a yellow-green, in between the colors of ro2 and roU, but due to the similarity between roSports and the aforementioned roChannels, it was changed to a shade of blue which did not directly interfere with the channel colors of any of the other services. roMusic Proposed channel number: 117 roMusic would have featured a variety of music videos, in addition to music specials from various artists, and weekly US and UK chart countdowns. Viewer requests were also planned. The channel's concept was later repurposed, in whole or in part, for a number of other Robloxian TV channels, most notably MixTV. roPlay Channel Proposed channel number: 119 (original), 110 (until August 19, 2017), 111 (since August 20, 2017) A channel featuring programs available in the roPlay on-demand service, combining rTV, RN and formerly roChannel episodes for viewing. Unlike the other channels, this channel is actually a static image, and viewers can go to the roPlay site (a part of the roTV website and service) to actually view the episodes. This channel was the only roChannel which would have launched with the service, due to the fact that the other roChannels had been sidelined indefinitely. However, its channel number was changed to channel 110, where its positioning is meant to act as a dividing line between the major channels and the smaller channels and major companies' multichannels. Due to a number of channel closures and reshuffles since the launch of the service, this positioning has been increasingly tough to maintain. The channel moved down to channel 111 on August 20, 2017, as part of the release of roTV v2.0. ro24 Proposed channel number: 124 ro24 was planned to be a news service, focusing on IRL news from what original documentation about the channel called "global independent news outlets" (likely, major US and international news services). Were it to launch, ro24 would have likely served as a major competitor to the two dominant Robloxian news channels of the time, Blox News Channel and BBN News. roLate roLate was a proposed service set to timeshare on ro1, ro2, ro3, roMovies, and roMusic (although later accounts would drop the last channel) between midnight and 6am Eastern Time. The service would have featured, according to original documentation for the service, a "mix" of the aforementioned channels. As it was never expanded upon in the documentation for the service, it was never explained how roLate would operate in relation to the distinct automated schedules of the different channels the service timeshared on. Category:Networks Category:Defunct networks